


taking back my love

by resonant_aura



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Graphic Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, literal sexual healing, this is a little dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:56:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6463957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonant_aura/pseuds/resonant_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keyleth finds Vax wandering in a blizzard outside of Whitestone, frozen, unresponsive, and seemingly under a spell. She takes him to Gilmore, and together they try to bring their lover back to himself and remind him what's worth living for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	taking back my love

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All the people and places you recognize are the intellectual property of their respective creators--Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, Matt Mercer, and the other amazing members of Geek & Sundry’s fantastic webstream show Critical Role.
> 
> This is for the anonymous ask I received requesting some adult Keyleth/Vax/Gilmore. Hope this is something like what you were looking for, anon! Spoilers for pretty much any episode after 40, if you want to get picky. Set sorta-kinda between Episode 44 and 45 (in an alternate universe where these three are in an established relationship).

It’s not supposed to happen this way.

Vax shivers in the cold, shivers under the soft, slender hands that are hurriedly undoing the knots in the ties of clothes. Outside the blizzard screams. It has always been there, always screaming, eternally cold. His eyes are fixed on the blurring dark grey world outside even though he vaguely believes there is something, someone, in this room who he would rather see. No. The cold is all there is, the cold and the fire. He ought to scream.

“See?” he hears the feminine whisper, warm breath washing over his ear and making it twitch. “I told you… I can’t—”

“I know.” The deep voice sends further shivers down Vax’s spine, and his knees buckle. He closes his eyes. “Vax. Look at me. Look at us.”

He does, because in the dark he sees red sparks and burning bodies.

Keyleth is there, bright and wavering like a candle flame. Gilmore is there, frowning, chocolate eyes set deep in coffee-colored skin. And Vax is there somewhere between them, pale and dark, ink and bone—

“How could you?” Gilmore asks on a heavy, disapproving sigh. Yes, he is wrong, he is unworthy, he is a disappointment. Vax feels a pang of guilt, a wince of sorrow, and he drifts back to the storm. How could he? How could he? “Look at her,” Gilmore commands, reaching out to lift Vax’s chin and force his eyes onto Keyleth. She’s wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the cold, her mouth turned down unhappily. “You’ve worried her. You’ve worried both of us.”

“I know,” Vax whispers. His voice is hoarse, but he doesn't know why.

“Where were you?”

Where was he? Doesn’t matter—out, in the dark, searching for answers, searching for safety. No one is safe. Not Uriel, not Tiberius, not Percy, not Gilmore, not _Vex_ —

He chokes and squints his eyes shut again, and the swirling snow behinds his eyelids becomes sparks, the sparks set fire to black raven’s feathers, the ground is swallowing him whole—

“Damn it!” There’s a sharp impact on his knees, a rough solid jostling against his side, and Vax grunts. “Vax’ildan!”

“I’m sorry,” he hears Keyleth whimper from further away, “I’m sorry, it’s just, he’s been like this for hours now and I know you’re supposed to be healing but—”

“I’m healed enough for this.” That deep voice is inside him, now, rumbling through his bones, making his blood bubble. Vax feels the tension stringing him tight loosen, just a hair, but he is still cold, he’s so cold, there are icy fingers clawing down his chest, an empty black gaze fixed on him from somewhere in the distance. “Darling, come here,” Gilmore says, a soothing murmur directed over his head. The air shifts. Instead of icy nails it’s silky hair on his chest, trembling fingers of warm flesh. He feels a hot dampness on his skin. “Keyleth—Keyleth, dear, don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it.” Another wash of breath over his skin, another shiver.

She’s crying. Keyleth’s crying.

Vax groans and opens his eyes. It feels like pushing boulders up a mountain. Looking down his own body, his view is mostly obscured by a crown of red-gold hair, shuddering slightly against his naked chest. Her hand is fisted in the open flap of his tunic. “Kiki, don’t,” he mutters. His voice sounds like gravel—where _was_ he the last few hours? Days? He doesn’t remember.

She doesn’t look up, only burrows her face deeper into his skin.

From over his head, a heavy sigh. He feels the wall of warmth at his back shift and bend—he realizes that he’s on the floor, cold stone at his buttocks, Gilmore’s living heat at his back. He feels an arm wrap around him and sees a hand settle over Keyleth’s shining hair. “Keyleth,” Gilmore pleads quietly, “ _please_. You mustn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again, voice thick with suppressed sobs.

“You—both of you—” Gilmore’s voice is just as strained as hers, nearly breaking. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

Keyleth lifts her head, tears glimmering in the dim yellow light of a lamp. “Sor—”

Vax grunts as he’s jostled and nearly dropped to the floor. He watches from the cradle of Gilmore’s arm as the older man leans past him, his hand cupping Keyleth’s head, and silences her with a heated, firm kiss. Vax stirs a little, pleasantly intrigued, vaguely jealous. They part with the soft, suspended breath of anticipation, and Keyleth swallows heavily.

“Sorry,” she sniffles. “I’m wet.” Gilmore’s laugh starts as a mere chuckle, but quickly grows to a hearty laugh, nearly an unrestrained guffaw. Keyleth’s cheeks are stained a ruffled red when she realizes how Gilmore interpreted her statement. Vax smirks. “W-Wait, that’s—you know that’s not what I meant!”

“Neither of us are complaining, darling,” Gilmore says, still laughing, and gently drops a peck on her frowning lips.

This—this is familiar. This has a shape, a substance, something that makes it _his_ , and Vax instinctively gropes for the memory, for the ritual of the three of them. “I want proof,” he says, his voice still a croak, and tries to lever himself out of Gilmore’s embrace.

Every muscle in his body shrieks in protest. Cold, _cold_ , bullets and knife-blades and raw threads of steel piercing him, drawing his flesh taut, slicing through it, pricking it like the quills of midnight-black feathers—

“Vax, Vax! Vax! It’s okay, we’re here, it’s fine—”

Keyleth’s words are distant, so distant, the storm outside is _howling_ —

“Keyleth. Blankets. Now. And start the fire, if you can.”

 _“No!”_ Vax screams, his back arched in agony. Keyleth’s tears are just silver sparks, sparks in a fire, it’s taking him piece by piece, first his foot and now his leg and soon—“Please, no, no—”

“You’re freezing to death, Vax’ildan, we have to do something to warm you up.”

“Not the fire,” he gasps, eyes shooting open. He desperately searches out Gilmore’s face, a comforting warm hue against the bleached white of the stone behind him, but he can’t focus, he sees through the face instead of looking at it. “Please, not fire, I can’t—they took her, they’ll take me—”

He feels his arms, thrashing without his knowledge, suddenly pinned to his side. Warmth presses against his bare chest, gently but firmly pushing him down to the floor. Gilmore’s expression melts into something like pity, and through all the silver-sharp pain Vax feels the weight of Gilmore’s hand gentle and familiar on his shoulder. “All right. All right. No fire. Keyleth?”

“Blankets, yeah, here,” she gasps.

A _whumpf_ of sound, and Vax feels his limbs being lifted and dropped steadily, something unbearably warm and scratchy under his skin. He hisses in discomfort, but Gilmore apparently ignores him, focused on his task. “I’m assuming your magic had no effects.”

“No, it—I told you, I tried, but he just—I don’t know, it’s like something drains it away from him before anything can happen.”

“I see.”

“Kiki,” Vax gasps, because she sounds so scared and he knows the sparks are bad, they might catch her, but he doesn’t want her to be afraid. He’d do anything to protect her. And Gilmore, too, gods, he’d give anything for them both to get out of here right now, catch a ship to some distant island and never come into harm’s way ever again—

“I’m here.” Those slender hands are there again, gripping one of his. “I’m here, Vax. Are you with me?”

“I’ll need your help, Keyleth, I can’t lift him on my own.”

“Right, of course.”

The hands vanish and Vax wants to reach through the dark and the cold, but then he’s swinging in the air, his body enfolded in the scratchy wool blanket and stinging with the memory of fire burning him into ash. He lands on something soft and forgiving, and there is a touch on his chest now, at his throat. “Gods, he’s just getting colder.”

“I know—I think he must’ve been out there since we got back, and that was two days ago—”

“Cursed idiot. Vax’ildan!”

He can’t deny that voice. He never could, except once, and then never, ever again. “Yes?” he murmurs. Sparks, sparks in the snow—

“Vax. Vax, you have to come back now. Come back to us.” Gilmore takes him by the fighting hand and encloses it in his.

“I’m here,” he replies, confused, because they’re all here, in the storm, why would Gilmore say that?

“Vax, you aren’t—” There is a sudden silence, heavy and jagged, and then Gilmore says in a low voice. “Keyleth. His glove.”

Keyleth takes in a fast breath, but she says nothing.

“What is it? What happened?”

“… The Raven Queen,” she replies slowly. Behind his eyelids the feathers are encased in ice, edged with flame, they rain down on him like a shower of arrows, they’ll close him in soon. He knows it. Running won’t work forever.

“He went out in that storm for two days with a goddess of death marking him.” Gilmore’s tone is dark, bloody, shaking with rage. If he wasn’t locked in pain, Vax might have flinched. “If I didn’t love you so damn much, you foolish half-elf, I would kill you myself to spare me the worry.”

“Gilmore—”

“Shhhh. We can try.” Vax feels the press of Gilmore’s thumb bearing down into the broken, blackened inlay of Sarenrae’s wings on his glove. “She doesn’t have him yet.”

Vax lies on the bed, fighting invisible demons, every muscle seized with effort. He wishes he could help them. They sound so sad, so frustrated, and of course it’s about him because somehow it always is. Maybe the Raven Queen was the best person he could go to after all, in the end. He doubts he could break her heart.

“Vax.” Breath on his lips, the scent of wine and something bitter, something that reminds him of healing potions. He’s expecting more words, a message, a plea, and perks his ears to hear it—but instead there are teeth at his bottom lip, a dull pressure that sets a jolt off in his spine shooting straight down to his groin. Those teeth slowly scrape back, away, leaving his lip throbbing and hot. He’s suddenly aware of the air rushing past his lips and swirling down to his lungs, and his lip—that one part of him, now abandoned to the air—doesn’t feel cold at all. It feels alive, pulsing with blood, vibrant and full of sensation. There’s a sound from Gilmore, a vocalized smirk. “You remember this,” Gilmore says, and then it isn’t teeth but lips and tongue and a hand at his neck, cradling the base of his skull.

He feels hands sweeping over his chest, skimming over his skin up to the points of his shoulders, pushing back the linen and leather and heavy cloth. With Gilmore’s mouth still on his Vax is lifted up, head lolling back, and cold air envelops his naked arms as his clothes are pulled away from his torso. There are fingers in his hair, tugging gently at the braid near his ear.

There’s a sudden dull burning in his chest just as Gilmore draws back, and Vax gasps for breath. “That’s right,” the wizard murmurs, dropping a wet, suckling kiss on Vax’s collarbone. “Breathe, Vax.”

He keeps gasping, relishing the movement of air, and then he’s falling back again—but not to the bed, he lands on something semi-vertical, something with angles and curves and heat. Keyleth. Tendrils of her hair tickle his cheeks and chin as she leans down and plants a kiss on his forehead, a beneficence. “That was fast,” Gilmore remarks with the sly, dark edge that Vax remembers from other evenings, other encounters, an edge that sets his to heart beating fast and strong. Keyleth lets out a brief, breathless laugh.

“I guessed where you were going with this,” she whispers. “Was I wrong?”

There’s no response, but Vax hears the soft, wet noises of another kiss from overhead. He’s in Keyleth’s lap, he realizes—there, at the small of his back where Keyleth’s handprint was burned into his skin only days ago, he can feel everything with almost painful sensitivity. He feels the softness of her skin, the exact curve and firmness of her thighs, the brush of the fine hairs on her legs. He takes comfort in the contrast provided by that patch of skin, that moment of contact. And then his eyes snap open when he figures out that he can feel those things because she’s naked.

His return to the seeing world is celebrated with a fantastic view of the undersides of her breasts—smooth, shadowy crescents, reminding him of cream and lamb’s wool and feathers that do not cut or burn or bleed. He can just make out the rosy pink tips of her nipples, peaked in the cool air of the room. And above those glorious breasts, a sight more glorious—Keyleth’s bright green eyes, teary and sparkling, and Gilmore’s handsome face, his dark curls mingling with Keyleth's amber locks. “Hi,” Vax says weakly, trying to smile.

“You’re not out of the woods yet, my darling,” Gilmore says, which makes no sense, and then he disappears from view. Vax tries to lift his head but after the wave of agony his muscles are oddly numb, taut and frozen. He feels one of his boots being tugged from his foot, then the other. The boot covering his burned foot. He yelps and twists, trying to escape. “Vax, please, be still!”

“Vax,” Keyleth says in a soothing, melodious whisper, bending closer to enclose him in a curtain of her hair, “it’s gonna be okay. All right? We’re gonna take care of you. We won’t let anything hurt you, I promise.”

“The sparks,” Vax croaks, searching her face desperately, trying to make her see. She nods grimly.

“Yes, the sparks,” she says, “I know. Don’t worry, sweetheart, we won’t let them get you here.”

“You have to—”

“Shhhh,” she breathes, and leans closer to press a light kiss to his lips. Her lips are remarkably similar to Gilmore’s, full and just a little damp. The bow to her upper lip is more pronounced, gives interesting texture to her kiss, but the comfort and warmth gifted by either mouth are just the same. He can feel her breasts gently pressed into his head. She breaks the kiss and gives him a fabulous view of the long column of her throat as she looks down his body.

Vax blinks—it isn’t so difficult now, though his eyes feel dry and gritty as though he hasn’t slept for days—and peers through the strands of Keyleth’s hair. Gilmore is at his feet, slowly rolling the stockings down, chafing the skin of Vax’s ankles with his palms. He glances up and smiles, though it flickers with some dark, sad emotion at the corners. “Does it hurt anywhere, Vax?” he asks.

Vax watches those dark hands massaging him; they feel different than he thinks they should, less pressure, more heat, but the sight is alluring enough to capture his attention. He tries to wet his lips, but his tongue is a dry, inert thing in his mouth. Gilmore’s hand moves steadily up, along the arch of his foot to the jut of his anklebone, up over his calves, into the hollow of his knee. Keep going, he wants to say, it doesn’t hurt at all—but then that pain from before, bright as a knife blade and three times as sharp, slices into him from all sides, and he clenches his jaw as he tries to ride it out. Gilmore’s eyes flicker in recognition and he trades a solemn glance with Keyleth. “He’s trying. Something is trying to distract him.”

“Then we just have to be more distracting,” Keyleth murmurs. “Keep your eyes open, Vax.”

His vision has almost given up, black spots (turned into snow, turned into feathers—) dancing at the corners, but he does as she says. Keyleth slides out from beneath him. She is completely naked, all willowy limbs and skin burnished with the faintest hint of gold from the lamplight. She crawls down to Vax’s knees and reaches out, pulling Gilmore into a brief, tender kiss. Then she kneels beside the wizard and unfastens the clasp of his robe, rising up on her knees to slide the robe off his shoulders, sliding her body down the length of his along with it. One of Gilmore’s hands stays on Vax’s ankle, a tenuous connection, but the other rises to trace her collarbone with a curious finger. His fingers linger at the hollow of her throat, then drift down the center of her chest between her breasts.

“Keyleth,” Gilmore murmurs, and his voice is so oddly heavy, so sad. Vax would be floating on air if he could only get his hands to work and do that same thing, follow Gilmore’s path, twine their fingers together over her breasts and—

The pain comes again, insistent, but this time it’s less overwhelming. He steels himself and stays with them, in the moment, refusing to give in.

Keyleth has continued down the many layers of Gilmore’s clothes, past the billow-sleeved shirt, the wrapped bindings of his pants; she tips him over onto his side and strips off the skintight leggings beneath. She presses swift kisses to every inch of skin she exposes—wrists, chest, hip, ribs. She gingerly, tenderly, skirts kisses around the still-healing scars and bruises at his midsection, pink with new flesh. The evidence on his skin is proof of cruel and brutal violence: the jagged lines of claw marks, one especially deep circular wound shaped like a dragon’s fang. But instead of flinching from her touch Gilmore savors it, head alternating between rolling back on his neck and drooping forward to watch her progress. He takes a moment to remove all of the golden rings on his fingers before weaving both hands into her hair. She smirks when she tugs at his loincloth, sliding her hand over the telltale bulge there. Vax gulps.

“What are you waiting for?” Gilmore demands, delivering a mild nip to the tip of Keyleth’s ear. Her smirk eases into a smile, and she nods at Vax.

“Him,” she says simply.

“Ah. He is being a tad neglectful, isn’t he?”

“’M not,” Vax protest through his gritted teeth. Where Gilmore’s hand is still clinging to his foot, he can feel the slow, devastating swipe of the other’s man’s thumb, back and forth, back and forth. “I want—”

“He isn’t feeling well, remember?” Keyleth murmurs throatily. The velvet in her voice makes him throb with longing, a pulse of hot need in his cock, but he can see the shadow in her eyes. She’s still scared, scared of the sparks, scared of the storm, but she’s trying to push through. For him. For them. Anguish wrings his heart, stronger than the cold, brighter than the pain.

Gilmore says, “That’s true. Maybe we should make more of an effort to include him.” Then he rises up from the bed and flips Keyleth onto her back, pressed down into the pillows by the weight of his body.

“Gilmore,” she gasps, and Vax feels a smile tug at his lips. She still can’t bring herself to call him by his first name, even with all this, with everything they’ve done together. Gilmore buries his face in the druid’s neck, and whatever he does to her there makes her lashes flutter down over her cheeks. She moans, once, a hot liquid sound that pools at the base of Vax’s spine, and she reaches up to grasp the base of Gilmore’s ponytail, dragging the ties loose so that his hair spills free. “I thought—you said—”

“I did say,” Gilmore murmurs. He draws back to kiss the corner of her jaw, the curve of her cheek. “And we will. But you should be ready for what comes, and I won’t have you suffering needlessly.” He chuckles directly into her ear, and Vax shudders with her. “You think Vax is the only man in this room who knows how to arouse you?”

“Well, n-no, but—”

“Then relax,” Gilmore whispers, and his hand rises to sweep over her side, petting her flank and teasing at the side of her breast. Gilmore shoots a look at Vax over Keyleth’s shoulder—his eyes are black with desire, deep and welcoming and exactly what Vax wants. The half-elf can’t help the guttural groan that rips out of his chest, but still he is pinned to the bed by some invisible force, paralyzed, still fighting off waves of dizziness and the feeling of icicles burning through his skin. “Care to help me, Vax?” Gilmore invites, reaching out to slip his fingertips past the waist of his pants, caressing the skin at his hip. Vax moans again—gods, they’re so close, they’re right _next_ to him, he can feel the heat from their bodies radiating and coaxing him closer but he still can’t _move_ —

“Fine then,” Gilmore says with a glittering grin, and turns Keyleth so that she’s facing Vax, sprawled on her side. His hands linger at her belly, the dip of her waist, the curve of her breast, then disappear to her back. Gilmore trains those dangerous eyes on Keyleth, now hungrily waiting for her reaction instead of Vax’s, and his arm moves. She lets out a long, throaty moan, ending on the ghost of a breath. Vax can imagine—he can see it, the handsome dark hand stroking down Keyleth’s spine, tracing the outline of her shoulder blades, touches that barely register, that tease her skin into hypersensitivity. They’ll feel like sunlight on her skin, like joyful memories given a tangible form. He knows because Gilmore has done the same thing to him.

Vax echoes her moan. Jerkily, like a rusted machine, his arm reaches out and the back of his hand bumps against her thigh. Keyleth’s eyes are heavy-lidded and dark like mysterious glens deep in the woods. She looks at him, her mouth rosy and slack with want, and gods damn he wants to kiss her.

 _No_ , comes the icy voice in his head, not a hiss or a cry but an eerily calm voice, bell-clear and unaffected. _You promised me. You did not want more time._ The black spots at the corners of his vision return, but now they are falling like snowflakes, like feathers, like beads of blood.

“Vax,” Keyleth’s voice, breathy and sweet, draws him back. “Vax. Please.” Her hips shift against the bed, rolling towards him. “Please?”

His hand is there, almost where she wants it, inches away from the coppery curls at her core. He pushes, forces his stiff muscles to respond, to relax and move. He gets another couple inches, but that’s all.

Then Gilmore reaches over Keyleth’s side and covers Vax’s hand with his, pulling him the rest of the way, pressing Vax’s fingers into the burning heat of Keyleth’s sex. His fingers and Gilmore’s press and stroke and circle, sometimes together and sometimes apart, each attempting to draw Keyleth’s passion higher. Vax, breathless, switches his gaze from Keyleth’s blissful expression to Gilmore’s, dark and intent. The other man smiles and withdraws his hand. Keyleth whimpers and writhes a little, twisting her torso against the pillows so that her breasts are upturned, her hips still where they were with Vax’s hand caught between her thighs. Gilmore breaks his stare with Vax and instead ducks down to Keyleth’s breasts, closing his mouth over one puckered nipple.

Keyleth lets out a nearly breathless scream.

Gilmore’s eyes slide shut, and his hand reaches out to grab a fistful of Vax’s hair, his thumb brushing the rogue’s ear.

Somehow, those things are enough.

 _NO!_ the chilling voice in his head shouts, but he shouts back, with all the love and need and frustration and confusion and pain crashing through his body, and he _moves_. He kicks out with one leg, then the other, rolls himself over and huddles close to his lovers, shuddering at the blast of frigid air that washes over him.

Keyleth wraps one arm around him, shaking with arousal. “He’s still cold, Gilmore.”

“It’s all right. It’s working.” Suddenly Gilmore surges up from behind Keyleth and pulls Vax on top of her, maneuvering his quaking limbs into a loose hold around Keyleth. “You’re overdressed, my love.” Gilmore’s hands are working at his hips, undoing the buckles of his belts, and just behind are Keyleth’s hands pushing the heavy leathers down to his knees. Vax would be embarrassed by the force with which his erection springs up, embarrassed that he wasn’t wearing some undercloth to make him decent, but instead he’s relieved that there is one less barrier to be dealt with and Keyleth is blushing and smiling anyway so what does it matter. She tugs him down to her, cradling him in warmth. “Oh. I see it’s working _very_ well.”

At his back, Vax feels Gilmore press close, pushing him down even closer to Keyleth. Unmistakably against his buttocks he feels Gilmore’s own hardness, thick and hot and demanding and fantastically freed of that stupid loincloth. Thank heaven—this is how they’re meant to be.

The wind howls louder at the window, rattling the frame with icy breath.

“Be with me, Vax’ildan,” Gilmore breathes into his ear. “Be with us.”

Keyleth’s hands close around his face, framing his cheeks, and draw him into a long kiss. Behind him he hears the clatter and clink of a glass jar, the slick sounds of oil on skin, and then there are warm fingers gently easing into him, a burn without fire, an ache without pain. Vax feels rather than hears the broken sound released from his throat to Keyleth’s lips, but she swallows it without hesitation, her hand drifting down to grasp his cock in a teasingly lax grip. He nibbles her lip, trying to encourage her, to get through the first part of the adjustment, but she just grins against his kiss and moves her hand in a single slow glide.

More fingers. From behind him, a sigh, a moan. “You’re absolutely beautiful, Vax,” Gilmore whispers, brushing kisses over Vax’s back and bottom. One comes startlingly close to where his fingers have disappeared inside Vax, and the rogue startles, jerks forward, and he drags his own cock in a swift pull through Keyleth’s hand. All three of them groan in unison. Vax’s head drops to Keyleth’s shoulder. He pants for breath and wonders what that eerily cold voice in the back of his head is saying.

Gilmore’s arm closes around Vax’s hips and pulls him back and up, dragging him down the length of Keyleth’s torso, tilting him at a comfortable angle. He hisses once when his cock slips out of Keyleth’s grip. “Ready?” Gilmore whispers, everything dark and bittersweet and promising there in his question. Vax nods into the soft flesh of Keyleth’s belly and reaches out blindly for one of her hands, lacing their fingers together. Her other hand, now unoccupied, sweeps through his hair, stroking it back from his damp forehead. “Ready?” Gilmore asks again, and Vax looks over his shoulder in confusion, but this time those dark eyes are trained on Keyleth’s. Vax’s body trembles a little with her laugh, and when she says, “I’m ready,” when he is least prepared for it, that’s when Gilmore pushes forward that first crucial inch.

It _hurts_ , but he doesn’t _care_ , because it is so damn good he wants to cry and scream and laugh and groan, but it’s all so much that he can’t make any sound at all. Gilmore waits, one hand drawing soothing circles over his back. Blessedly, the only sparks Vax can feel are the ones popping in his own body, harmless metaphors for his overwhelmed mind.

Keyleth strokes her hand through his hair. Vax turns his face into her stomach and licks at her navel, does it again when she emits a squeak. Gilmore takes another inch, and another, and another. Vax gropes back, arms still awkward and not responding the way he’s used to, and grabs Gilmore’s hand so that he is linked with both of them, his fingers white-knuckled in the grasp of both his lovers.

Gilmore is fully seated, then, as far as he can go, and he leans down and presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss directly over the center of Keyleth’s brand on Vax’s back.

 _“Shit,”_ Vax gasps, rocketing up, then down. Gilmore chuckles, stirs a little where he sits inside Vax. He can feel the other man’s cock throbbing inside him, a nudge from within that feels completely alien and wonderfully familiar at the same time.

“That’s what I want, Vax,” Gilmore says in a heated, rushed breath, vowels and consonants coasting over the brand in a maddening ghost of sensation, real and titillating but not _enough_. “That’s good, yes—Keyleth—” Out of the corner of his eye, Vax sees Gilmore and Keyleth clasp hands. His cock hangs in the air now, bobbing in time with the beats of need thumping through him, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all connected, all three of them—a circle of flesh and blood and love and lust. His skull rings with a sudden scream, a sound like a million icicles shattering at once, a volcano boiling over.

“Vax!” Keyleth gasps. She frees her hands from them to tug at his arms, and both he and Gilmore half-crawl, half-fall onto her, where she’s been waiting for them among the pillows and sheets like a nymph in a downy lake. Vax moans, rocks back into Gilmore’s hips and forward just enough to suck at one of her nipples. She gasps again, back arching, and slaps one fist down into the sheets before pointedly grabbing his cock. She’s gentle, but no longer relaxed or teasing—her eyes are blazing with a very clear need. She guides him to her sex, and he can feel her slick and hot and soft—“Vax,” she says, over and over, a chant that wraps him in pleasure, “Vax, Vax, _Vax_ —”

“Vax’ildan—” Gilmore groans, his hips nudging Vax’s, small aborted gestures that say he’s holding back, he’s trying to restrain himself. “Go on, come on—”

Vax takes a breath and plunges into Keyleth’s welcoming body.

For a clear, sun-bright moment, he’s suspended. There is no rush of blood, no gasping cries, no pounding flesh. In fact, for some strange reason, he remembers a conversation he had with someone—the face is blurred—but he remembers it, the talk of orgasms and pleasure and what this stranger had dubbed “the little death”.

This is not little. And it is not death. It is bigger and more full of life than the whole of the world.

Then Keyleth’s hand comes back to his, palm to palm, and he suspects she takes Gilmore’s again too, because the bubble of suspension bursts and he feels heat seeping into him, not a burn but a balm. The icicle-scream is abruptly cut off. He can feel again; the pain, the fire, the snow-encased feathers have all vanished. The hair of Gilmore’s chest is a tickle against his spine, the smell of sex and sweat overpower the slight underlying odor of dust and fresh-fallen snow in the air, and the sound of their breath and the rustle of sheets and the slide of their sweat-slick skin consume his senses. It’s all there, and he’s _alive_ , he’s brilliantly, blindingly alive, with these two gorgeous people on either side of him coaxing him to ecstasy.

 _This_ is how it is supposed to be.

“Keyleth,” he gasps, lost in her slick core. “Shaun,” he cries, split open in the most delicious way. They’re moving together, the three of them, sometimes in unison and sometimes two against one and sometimes it’s a chaos of shifting and thrusting and pulling but it’s all so good. There is so much to taste and kiss and touch and hold, but it’s already coming too close, he’s wound too tight already just from _watching_ them, and he remembers Gilmore’s mouth on Keyleth’s breast and nearly howls. Beneath him Keyleth is growling like an animal in heat, behind him Gilmore is panting and letting out broken groans, and Vax just breathes, just breathes and tries to hold on—

Gilmore bites down into his shoulder, and Vax is gone.

He shudders and grinds to a halt deep within Keyleth, and the little jerks of his body there against her clit send her over the edge too. With the both of them joined in a chorus of joy and loss and satisfaction, Gilmore gasps and presses his trembling mouth to the teeth marks left in Vax’s shoulder, and he follows shortly after the half-elves. The three of them hold on for a shivering moment, aftershocks chasing themselves back and forth and across the bridge of their bodies, before Gilmore groans and falls to one side, taking Vax with him so that the rogue is embraced by both lovers, Keyleth on his left and Gilmore on his right.

Slowly the world comes back to him: the frozen pines outside the simple, iron-barred window; the whitestone walls; the bed, which was only barely big enough to handle their activities. A guestroom, in the castle, in Whitestone. The storm outside in the woods, from which he gains brief flashes of hysterical, hallucinatory memory—the trees talking, ice forming over his hands and feet, a shadowy woman’s silhouette appearing and disappearing in the blizzard.

The dragons. Vex. The Raven Queen.

Vax lifts himself up onto his side, weight on one elbow, and pins Keyleth with a stare.

“What,” he says slowly, “the _fuck_ was that?”

On either side, his companions go warily still. The flush that was only just starting to fade from Keyleth’s skin comes back full force.

“Um… sexual healing?” she tries, still a little breathless.

“Very effective sexual healing,” Gilmore notes, one hand lazily tracing lines up and down Vax’s hipbone. Vax tries to bat the hand away but Gilmore swats him on the rear and continues as if nothing happened. “Perhaps you and I should go into business, Keyleth, my love. We could make a discreet branch of Gilmore’s Glorious Goods.”

Vax swivels around and gives Gilmore a narrow-eyed glare. “Oh, without me?”

Gilmore shrugs with one shoulder. “You’re the one suddenly using the word fuck as an expletive and not a directive.” His eyes gleam with a wanton, flirtatious smirk. “Or did you want that to be a more… flexible usage?”

Keyleth squeaks. “You can’t possibly want more already!”

“One always wants more, Keyleth,” Gilmore drawls, closing his eyes to Vax’s scowl. “It’s a part of the human condition.”

“We’re half-elves, Gilmore,” Vax grumps.

“And as you are half-human, you still suffer the same troubles. Why so aggravated, Vax? There is afterglow to be enjoyed.”

“What happened?” Vax swallows. “Something—someone had me, just now, didn’t they? The Raven Queen, was it? I was in a spell? And you tried to break it—with sex!”

“And succeeded.”

“You put yourselves in _danger_ ,” Vax insists. “You made yourselves vulnerable for nothing, you might have brought a god’s wrath down on you for no _reason_ —”

“We had every reason, Vax,” Keyleth murmurs softly, almost apologetically, and presses herself against his back. Vax closes his eyes and tries to focus on his rage and not on the tempting length of her body against his skin. “We love you. There isn’t a reason better than that one.”

Vax forces his eyes open and finds Gilmore’s trained steadily on his face. He must see something there that convinces him to speak, because in a low, nearly emotionless tone, he says: “Keyleth found you stumbling outside in the storm four hours ago, at sunset. You were unresponsive, cold to the touch, and when she tested you for magical effects you seemed to be under the influence of a powerful divine compulsion. Healing did not work. Potions did not work. She tried to give you a hot bath but when you nearly broke the door trying to escape she decided that was not the correct course of action. She brought you to me before anyone else, thinking I might be the most likely to advise her. And when she did,” he continues, leaning on his words, “she was terrified, half-convinced that if you died it would be her fault, and nearly inconsolable at the thought you were suffering.”

Vax does not blink. He does not breathe. He stoically takes in Gilmore’s harangue and does not argue. In part, he does not want to pick a fight over this when the more important discussion—of their safety—is still unresolved. But also, there is a not-so-small part of him that is petrified by Gilmore’s story, his matter-of-fact description of Vax’s near-death experience. He doesn’t want to speak and acknowledge it.

More softly, Gilmore finishes, “When she told me you had an entanglement with the Raven Queen, all I could think was that you were wandering somewhere between life and death. All we could do was remind you of what awaits you here—of what might be worth living for.”

“Might,” Vax echoes, embittered by the knowledge that he has yet _again_ flung his most precious loved ones directly into harm’s way because of a stupid mistake. Gilmore’s face shutters and he seems to withdraw. Chagrined, Vax reaches out, pressing his palm over Gilmore’s heart and drawing the other man closer with an arm around his shoulders. “No, no, I’m not—gods damn it, Shaun, Keyleth—” Vax tries to fight back the tears, but he’s certain one slips down his cheek. “You can’t keep doing this for me. You can’t. It’s dangerous. It’s reckless. It’s—”

“Exactly what you would do for either of us,” Keyleth puts in, her hand coming around to rest over his heart in a reflection of his position with Gilmore. “Don’t tell us off for that, you hypocrite.”

He refuses to admit she has a point. “I won’t allow either of you to make those kinds of sacrifices for me.”

“The decision is not yours,” Gilmore replies, voice gentle but his gaze flinty. “Whether or not you _allow_ it is irrelevant. Think of it as self-defense, if you like. Neither of us wants to deal with the heartbreak of losing you. Well, any more heartbreak than we already have,” he adds mournfully.

Vax has the grace to blush and say nothing.

“If it helps, I didn’t do it for you.” Gilmore covers his mouth, attempting to stifle a yawn. “I’m very much averse to being stolen from—mortal, demon, goddess, it matters little. I’m as stubborn as the next man, Vax. If my love is stolen from me, I’ll take it back.”

Vax mulls over that for a moment, and stores it away for later contemplation. He’s voiced his concerns. It’s clear from Gilmore’s cool defensiveness and Keyleth’s earnest mulishness that he’ll get nowhere with either of them—for now. “You saved my life,” he says, letting the worry settle in the back of his mind. Let it lie. It will always be there. “Both of you.”

Keyleth almost laughs. “We did, didn’t we?”

“For all that you’ve been very churlish about our rescue, yes, we did,” Gilmore says with a dramatic sniff. Vax cracks a smile and leans in to give the man a thorough kiss. “Don’t think one kiss erases your misdeeds,” says Gilmore once their lips part. But the wizard’s expression is tender, lit from within by a cautious joy, and he lifts a hand for a lingering caress on Vax’s cheek.

“I would never,” Vax replies, rolling over to bestow an equally drawn-out, loving kiss on Keyleth’s mouth. The little mewls she makes under her breath are enough to stir his interest, but he’s bone-weary and a little dizzy, and he thinks he might just want to sleep for a while. Keyleth breaks their kiss with a finger to his lips, then leans over him to kiss Gilmore, once, twice, and a third time.

“Thank you,” she says, nuzzling against his chin. “Thank you for helping me save him.”

Gilmore laughs and tucks Keyleth’s hair behind her ear. He gives her a sound peck on the lips and pushes her back to Vax’s other side.

Vax lies on his back, staring up at the stone ceiling and its ebony wood beams. “I love you,” he whispers, voice breaking. “And I’m sorry.” On one side, Keyleth wraps both her arms around one of his and draws close, snuggling into his side. On the other, Gilmore rises up enough to press a kiss to Vax’s temple. 

“Enough,” the wizard says on an easy sigh. “Love us, and accept that we love you, and let that be the whole of it.”

Vax smiles and holds his arm up and out, inviting his lover into a close embrace. “C’mere, you glorious bastard,” he whispers, their old trick, now more meaningful than ever. Gilmore laughs once, nearly a snort (although he would probably never admit to anything so coarse), and comes close enough that Vax feels his goatee graze the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “I’ve got you,” Vax murmurs, watching the lantern light flicker through the beams overhead. “I’ve got you both.”

But truly, he knows—they are the ones who have him, safe in their embrace, and that is what allows him to peacefully fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> A note on just what the Raven Queen is doing to Vax: it's not a spell, actually, or even really a compulsion. The Raven Queen is a lawful neutral deity, and in my headcanon she isn't a vindictive goddess so much as one who doesn't like to leave loose threads hanging. So, Vax pledges his life to her and she plans to collect. The reason for the hallucinations of fire and ice is that those are what Vax experienced when he was closest to death: the lava in the Underdark, and the ice here in the forest outside Whitestone (because yes, he was close to death in the blizzard.) The despair is another thing connecting him to death: when he nearly died on the palace grounds with the Briarwoods, and again in the rebellion of Whitestone. He experiences these things because the Raven Queen's power is drawing his soul from life to death, and those are the sensations bridging that gap for him. (I.e., for Vex it might be constant falling, or for Grog it would be the death ray from K'varn.) Just in case it seemed totally random for the goddess of death to have control over ice and fire. :)


End file.
